Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!umich!samsung!psuvax1!psuvm!NMSUVM1!MFSDBE From: MFSDBE@NMSUVM1.BITNET (D. Bryan Emery) Newsgroups: bit.listserv.liaison Subject: Help Desk Message-ID: Date: 1 Feb 90 13:39:04 GMT Sender: Network Site Liaisons Reply-To: Network Site Liaisons Lines: 45 Approved: NETNEWS@PSUVM Gateway Comments: To: Consultant's Forum We have a help desk here (actually, two different desks - one to support micros and one to support mainframe & networks). Our current design is not working well and we are in the process of trying to redesign our setup. This is going to be tricky and I could use all the suggestions and help I can get (sort of a "Help Desk for Help Desks"). What we have now is six undergraduate students that take turns sitting at a desk in an open area approximately 10 hours per week (60 total). Their remaining hours (up to but rarely ever 10) can be spent working on programming projects. The concept is good, but students seem to come and go and our attempts at providing a "relaxed" schedule have caused chaos. We are considering replacing the students with either 3 graduate assistants or temporary full-time staff (i.e. no benefits). We started in November using a tracking system we got from Kansas State (called "consult" which runs on a PC). The student employees *HATE* it. You have to stop each user and ask all sorts of background information just to have them ask, "Can I see the FORTRAN manual?". We would also like to provide some on-line "smart" assistance. Right now, we have set up an e-mail address where users on *ANY* system can e-mail their questions and get help within 24 hours. One last thing that we are looking into is on-line manuals and documentation. We feel that with adequate documentation and access to it, the demand on User Assistance might drop. However, it also might just become more sophisticated. Well, that's about all I can offer right now for our current situation. Any suggestions or comments? ========================================================================= +--------------+ D. Bryan Emery | | New Mexico State University Computer Center | | Mainframe Services Division | | P.O. Box 30001, Dept 3AT | | Las Cruces, New Mexico 88003-0001 | NMSU | (505) 646-1240 | * | | +--------+ Bitnet: MFSDBE@NMSUVM1 | | Internet: bemery@nmsu.edu +-----+ =========================================================================